More Words from Jim Palmer

More words from Jim Palmer:

I have a public confession to make.

I am an unbeliever.

I am an unbeliever in a God who lives somewhere “out there,” hovering above the universe like a divine landlord—watching, judging, intervening when it suits him.

I am an unbeliever in a God wrapped in maleness, whose image props up patriarchy and calls domination “divine order.”

I am an unbeliever in a God who tortures people forever for getting theology wrong, then calls it justice.

I am an unbeliever in a God who rigs the game from the beginning—baiting the first humans into failure and then blaming all of humanity for it.

I am an unbeliever in a God who bypasses a woman’s full humanity by turning her into a divine incubator because ordinary biology supposedly wasn’t good enough.

I am an unbeliever in a God who demands loyalty to one ancient book, as if truth stopped evolving thousands of years ago.

I am an unbeliever in a God who engineers a fallen world and then demands blood—his own son’s blood—to clean up a mess he designed.

I am an unbeliever in a God who calls belief a virtue even when it contradicts reason, conscience, compassion, and lived experience.

I am an unbeliever in a God who mysteriously “anoints” men with spiritual authority and expects women to call it holy.

I am an unbeliever in a God whose endgame is violence—Jesus on a white horse, enemies crushed, the world burned into submission.

I am an unbeliever in a God who puts conditions on love, qualifiers on grace, and fine print on acceptance.

So yes, I am an unbeliever in 'that' God.

And here’s the thing: we made that God up.

That God looks suspiciously like our fears, our power structures, our need for control—projected into the sky and baptized as truth.

Jesus didn’t believe in that God either.

Jesus didn’t teach a distant, punitive, blood‑thirsty deity obsessed with belief systems and moral scorekeeping. He spoke of a God discovered within, among, and between us—a God of radical inclusion, boundary‑breaking love, and relentless compassion.

The tragedy isn’t unbelief.

The tragedy is clinging to a God Jesus himself was trying to dismantle.

So yes—count me out.

I am done believing in ideas that collapse under scrutiny.

I am done baptizing contradiction and calling it mystery.

I am done mistaking control for holiness and fear for faith.

I am done pretending silence is virtue and obedience is love.

Words from Jim Palmer

Some words from a dude named Jim Palmer whom I don't know but who makes a lot of sense...

People love to say, “My authority is the Bible.”

Hate to break it to you: it’s not.

Your authority is what your pastor, your denomination, your favorite author, and that one sermon series told you the Bible means. Let’s not pretend you cracked open ancient texts in Hebrew and Greek and emerged with pure, bias-free divine download.

You inherited an interpretation. Then you called it “truth.”

Big difference.

Because here’s the uncomfortable reality nobody wants to admit: there is no single, clean, uncontested thing called “Biblical Christianity.” Never has been.

Christians have disagreed—loudly and often—about pretty much everything. Who Jesus was, what he meant, how salvation works, what the cross did, who’s in, who’s out… it’s been a theological food fight for 2,000 years.

And yet somehow, every group ends up convinced they’re the ones who finally got it right.

Convenient.

What you see in the Bible isn’t just “what’s there.” It’s what you’ve been trained to see.

Your conclusions are filtered through a whole cocktail of influences:

Your assumptions about what the Bible is—divine dictation or human wrestling match.

Whether you read it like a history book or a poem.

Which verses you were told matter most—and which ones to politely ignore.

What you think the authors were doing in the first place.

The theological box you’re trying to keep everything inside of.

How much Greek and Hebrew you actually understand (or pretend to).

All the books, sermons, and hot takes you’ve already absorbed.

Whether you trust logic, experience, or your gut.

How much contradiction you’re willing to live with without losing sleep.

How open you are to changing your mind (or how allergic you are to it).

Whether your current beliefs are comforting enough to protect at all costs.

How much time you’re willing to spend actually digging versus just repeating.

How tightly you cling to your tribe’s version of the truth.

And the big one—your entire life experience shaping what you think God is like.

But sure… “the Bible says.”

Here’s the plot twist:

People don’t read the Bible.

They read themselves into the Bible.

And then defend it like God personally endorsed their interpretation.

Now, when people leave religion, they often swing hard the other way and start trashing the Bible like it’s the villain in the story.

But let’s be honest—that’s a bit lazy too.

It’s not the Bible’s fault you were handed a rigid, literalist, fear-based framework and told, “This is the only way to see it.” That’s not the only way people have ever read these texts—it’s just the loudest one in certain circles.

Outside the fundamentalist bubble, people have been reading the Bible as poetry, protest literature, myth, metaphor, wisdom, and spiritual reflection for a long, long time.

So maybe the problem isn’t the book.

Maybe it’s the certainty.

Maybe it’s the arrogance of thinking your version is ‘the’ version.

Maybe it’s outsourcing your thinking to “experts” and calling it faith.

So here’s a radical idea:

Ask questions.

Think critically.

Hold your conclusions loosely.

And for the love of honesty, stop pretending your interpretation dropped straight from heaven untouched by human hands.

Because it didn’t.

And deep down—you know it.

Words of Wisdom from Dr John M Perkins

I was reminded today of the author, philosopher, pastor, John M Perkins. I was struck because I hadn't thought of him for some time. But it was reading his book, Let Justice Roll Down, that, in part, helped set my path for where I am today regarding the struggle for justice and the beloved community. Probably even before reading much of Dr King, it was Perkins who helped push this then conservative young man in the pursuit of justice for all.

Sadly, I hear he is in ill-health. Prayers for him and his loved ones.

Some quotes, then, from Dr Perkins:

"Come dream with me. Dream of a fight for something bigger, something more important and worthwhile. We need to fight for justice and peace, for the walls between us to come crashing down.” 

“And it requires that we make some uncomfortable confessions. G.K. Chesterton said, "It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't see the problem." I believe this statement can be applied to the lack of reconciliation within the Church today. We've not been able to arrive at the solution because we haven't seen or acknowledged the problem. 

The problem is that there is a gaping hole in our gospel. We have preached a gospel that leaves us believing that we can be reconciled to God but not reconciled to our Christian brothers and sisters who don't look like us - brothers and sisters with whom we are, in fact, one blood.”

“If we have been silent and have chosen to ignore the mistreatment of others in the past, we should begin to speak up and challenge injustices. If we were racist and bigoted in our speech and actions, there should be a radical change that is observable. If we have been angry and spiteful toward the other, there should be a radical change that is observable. 

And, yes, if we have an abundance of wealth and we have the opportunity to use this blessing to encourage those we have previously been prejudiced against, we should open our hands in Christian love and brotherhood. We should tear down the walls that have separated us for so long.”

“Throughout Scripture we read about God's concern for people who are vulnerable or suffering - the poor, the widows and orphans, the foreigners in the land, and so on. All Christians should feel a sense of calling to where there is pain in our society.”

....

And yes, I know that Dr Perkins is probably (way?) more conservative than many others in the Civil Rights movement... he may still be anti-LGBTQ (as he would almost certainly have been in the first more than half of his life, as was I...), although I don't know that. Still, his words moved this conservative Southern Baptist boy towards a more justice and beloved community direction and I'm thankful for that.